It seems it always happens. Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we’re a push-over all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn’t long before we’re looking up, mighty anxiously, to be sure the flag’s still waving over us. — Yankee Doodle Dandy

I take a lot of things for granted in my day-to-day life.  I drive to work on pretty good roads.  My kids go to good schools.  My wife is relatively safe to walk in our parks, alone and unmolested.  It’s not like that for a vast number of people in our world.  Is all of this because we live in America?  Not entirely, because there are parts of our country where these things aren’t true.  But in all of the places I’ve visited and lived in, it’s never been as likely to be that way as it is here.  Yeah, we have our warts, and we fight amongst ourselves, but there’s nowhere else I’d rather live.